A punching bag? This neofascist windbag has had the easiest path to legitimacy and the least amount of hard media scrutiny of any candidate for any office in recent history. The media has completely vacated its position as the primary vetting process medium in American politics.
They have not gone near any of his numerous scandals, the multiple trips to bankruptcy court, the abuse of public funds in NY to start his career, his father's abuse of the public trust, his sordid moral shortcomings, his own use of illegal immigrant labor, his close ties to the Mob, etc.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/21-questions-for-donald-trump/
Marketing genius? I don't think so. He just came along at a time when the GOP couldn't rub two decent candidates together with two fingers and fringe voter discontent is at an all time high. Trump's appeal nationally across all party lines is nowhere near enough to win a general election and will likely wind up ranking up there with some of the most embarrassing political defeats in history. Frankly, he will richly deserve it for going to and exploiting the right wing, low information voter's darkest, cynicism and fear based impulses.
His base is so inflated and is so unrepresentative of a huge majority of Americans that he is actually turning into the best marketer for Hilary Clinton to come along. I'll give him unintentional credit for that.
After Citizens United, the spigots on already barely regulated spending on political advertising have opened like never before. This year's election is predicted to top any previous election in ad spending. The mainstream media knows that if they told the truth that we will likely elect our first female president by a landslide on the heels of a double presidency by our first African-American president ( and probably by two landslides if one could ever expose the rampant voter suppression going on in the red states ), the spigot might not flow the way they are counting on. They need this to look like a horserace at least into the summer in order to cash in on the BILLIONS in ad buys and they knew as early as last year that the GOP wasn't putting any credible candidates out there, so they needed to latch onto whichever one would at least give the appearance of being a vote getter no matter how detestable and anti-American of a message he represents.
